I flashed the latest firmware for the board using q-flash but there is no change.

Is there an alternative to the r8169 driver? Can I try loading that one?

The thing is is that I went out and purchased another NIC to try and avoid the problem but it turns out that the non-built-in NIC uses the same Realtek driver!! Very frustrating. I just want to get this to work so I can start installing my OS and download the proper Realtek driver! I may just try buying a different network card but there has got to be an easier way!

Ok, so I found the officially supported driver from Realtek (r8168) according to this article. I was able to build it using the LiveDVD. I could install it and load but it didn't seem to work i.e., when I loaded the driver (modprobe or insmod) the hardware didn't seem to be detected. When I tried ifconfig or even lspci the NICs didn't show up. It's possible that I may need to do something else to get the driver to connect to the hardware but in the meantime I'm taking back the PCI NIC I bought and getting a wireless usb one. Maybe the wlan drivers are better supported. Does anyone have any suggestions as to why the driver doesn't seem to load properly?

dq

Last edited by don quixada on Thu Feb 28, 2013 3:09 pm; edited 1 time in total

Maybe the hardware is dead. Do you have a Windows drive to test it? I keep an old Windows 2000 IDE hard drive for this purpose. XP drivers usually work.
Try a Knoppix DVD. Try both the r8168 and r6189 drivers. My mobo wanted the r8168 Realtek driver although it was advertised as r8169.

I don't have Windows but I couldn't even get a usb wireless stick to work. I tried the r8168 driver too to no avail... I haven't tried Knoppix but I did try a system rescue linux that was recommended. Same problems. This is getting very frustrating!

I was finally able to connect using an Intel NIC!!!!!!! It only took five days to be able to connect to the Internet. Anyway, I still want to get the onboard LAN working. I'll try some stuff now that I have access to portage and report back...